What if I told you that all of your wildest dreams could come true if you were simply willing to feel temporary discomfort? Yup, that’s it. Sounds too good to be true? Stick with me and read on!
I’m going to hit you with a huge Truth Bomb: Your Thoughts are Optional! And, your thoughts create your feelings, which drive your actions, which create your results. Wait what?! I’ll break it down for you.
There are circumstances in our lives that we cannot control, like someone else’s behavior or the weather. We then have a THOUGHT about it. That THOUGHT is what creates our feelings/emotions. Here’s an example: Today it rained 3”. That is the circumstance. Some of you might be thinking that it is the circumstance that determines how you feel about it. If that were true it would create the same feelings for all of us. But two people in the same town can both experience the same rain and FEEL totally different. For instance, a farmer who has been praying for rain because there has been a drought might think “this is the best day ever! The rain has finally come!” That thought creates the FEELING of excitement or relief. These feelings might make him want to run outside and dance in the rain. However, a bride on the other side of town with an outdoor wedding might think “Oh no, my wedding day is ruined because of this awful rain! This is the worst day ever!” This thought produces a totally different feeling than the farmer’s. The bride might feel defeated, and that makes her not want to take pictures, point out everything that has gone wrong and maybe cry. See, it wasn’t the rain that created the feelings, it was their THOUGHTS about it.
This is true in every area of your life!! It is always your thoughts that create your emotions. So our big secret to life: we need to be willing to feel discomfort. Here’s why. We spend so much time and energy trying to avoid uncomfortable feelings. Who really enjoys shame, failure, anger, rejection, anxiety, defensiveness, and so many other “negative” emotions? I’ll be honest, I don’t enjoy them either. However, I’m willing to feel them in order to also enjoy the more “positive” emotions. I mentioned in my last blog post the idea of embracing the 50/50. We think we just want to be happy all the time right? Well if you truly were “happy” all the time I don’t think you’d feel happy at all. You need other emotions to even recognize what happiness feels like. In order to experience a fully human life we need this opposition. And when we are willing to experience the uncomfortable feelings, they will pass much faster, and we will be able to then enjoy the other 50, those positive emotions you so want.
You might be wanting to stop here and say “But wait. If we can choose our thoughts and thoughts create our feelings, shouldn’t we just pick thoughts that always make us feel happy?” My answer to that is no. There are times when we WANT to feel these “negative” emotions. When someone I love dies, I don’t want to feel happy about it, I want to feel grief. When I hear someone I love has been abused, I want to feel angry. These emotions will create different actions for me. And there are times I need to feel a certain emotion in order to take needed action. All emotions are needed!
Here’s where the true magic is, and why being uncomfortable is important. I’ll use something I’ve been going through as an example. I’ve recently started my own business. There are lots of new things I need to do. I might not want to take action on something I know I need to do for my business out of fear of rejection or embarrassment. But when I ask myself what rejection feels like, I can identify that it is a vibration that feels tight across my chest, my arms feel weak and might want to slump over and not move. Is that all? YUP! The worst thing that could happen to me by risking rejection is this uncomfortable vibration in my body. On the flip side if I take these same risks and put myself out there I might help someone. And when I have the thought, “I just helped someone understand their brain and emotions better,” I feel elated. What does elated feel like in my body? It feels like a rush of energy, shoulders back, head high, big smile, and a desire to keep helping others. When I realize the worst thing that can happen from trying is a vibration in my body that is uncomfortable, and the best thing that can happen is this positive feeling and vibration that I want more of in my life, I am way more likely to keep trying. Because I know that the rejection will pass. In fact, it passes quite quickly. When I ALLOW it to be, name it, feel it, it will move on. It is the beauty of the 50/50!
So my friends, the secret to life and success is to embrace the temporary discomfort!! In fact I even go so far as to seek it! Call me crazy, but I say “BRING IT ON!” I can’t wait to fail again because it means success is that much closer. I get better at allowing it each time and I get to experience a more full life.
You can have this too. No matter what you have been through, or what yesterday was, your today, and all your tomorrows can be beautiful and bright and full of all different kinds of human emotions. And the easiest way to feel amazing is to lean into the discomfort along the road. Life is 50/50, and that is beautiful. When we ignore that fact, or spend our energy running from the 50 that is uncomfortable we waste so much energy. I can help you practice leaning into this discomfort. I can help you find this 50/50 balance for your life! You can do this, and it will be AMAZING!! You can achieve ANY goal you set your mind to, as long as you are willing to feel a little discomfort along the way. Let me show you how. Click HERE to schedule a FREE, consultation session with me, and I’ll teach you how to do this in this very first session.
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